


The Other Side of Fiction

by SlippinMickeys



Series: The X-Files: Season 12 [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cunnilingus, F/M, MSR, RST, Season/Series 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 07:00:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20990732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlippinMickeys/pseuds/SlippinMickeys
Summary: Mulder and Scully. Scully and Mulder. In this, and every lifetime.





	1. Act One

**Author's Note:**

> This is our ‘Rm9,’ … our experimental episode. We realize that this would never happen in an actual episode of the X-Files, which is why we decided to do it!
> 
> This work is a love letter to the fandom and to the fanfic readers that stuck with the show for 25 years and never got to see Mulder and Scully consummate their relationship. 
> 
> Please note that unlike all other episodes this season, this episode is rated EXPLICIT for sexual situations. If that’s not your cup of tea, Episode 5 will be up next week!

COLD OPEN

_ “You’re impossible to buy for.” _

_ She jumped, startled, not expecting his voice. _

_ She hadn’t intended to snoop. She’d been on the phone with her OB’s office, needed to write down her next few appointment dates, and couldn’t find a pen anywhere. So she’d scooted into his office, stood on his desk, grabbed a sharp pencil from his ceiling, and that’s when she spotted it, tucked onto the top shelf of his bookcase. She’d pulled down the leather-bound notebook and, having never seen it before, opened it in curiosity. _

_ She was sitting at his desk reading it, a small smile upon her face and Daggoo at her feet, when Mulder walked in. _

_ “What is this, Mulder?” she asked, after she recovered her composure. _

_ She could be imagining it, but she thought she saw the tips of his ears redden as he moved into the room. _

_ “It’s a gift. It was supposed to be a surprise.” _

_ He leaned down to scratch the dog’s ears. _

_ “For what?” _

_ Mulder shrugged. _

_ “Name an occasion. I wanted to give you something.” _

_ “But it’s—“ _

_ “A love story,” he said, sitting on the edge of the desk to face her. _

_ “But—“ She wasn’t sure what to say. _

_ “After our undercover stint, you said you wished you could have known me for more of my life. I couldn’t give that to you for real, so I’m doing it this way.” _

_ “You’re writing me a love story?” Her eyes started misting over, touched. _

_ “I’m living one,” he said earnestly. _

_ She stood from the chair, silent, and walked into his embrace. _

_ “I realize it’s kind of silly…” he trailed off. _

_ “It also might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.” _

_ “I took some creative liberties…” _

_ “Wouldn’t be the first time.” _

_ He laughed, squeezed her in response and they stood there holding each other for several moments. _

_ Finally she leaned back, catching his eye. _

_ “I want to help,” she said. _

_ “What do you mean?” _

_ “I want to help write it.” _

_ He gave her a skeptical look and she glanced down at the open pages of the book. _

_ “I notice it’s not finished,” she said. _

_ He shrugged. _

_ “Hey, I’m living this love story, too,” she said, “if I can help you, let me.” _

_ “You’re serious?” _

_ She nodded. _

_ “Okay,” he said, leaning down and giving her a chaste kiss. He held up the sharpened pencil she’d pulled from the ceiling and held it aloft. “I want to know how it ends…” _

_ ** _ TITLE SEQUENCE_**_

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

OXFORD, ENGLAND

JULY 17, 1986

He noticed her right away, of course he did. The class was small, though it was held in a lecture hall, a summer session for upperclassmen. He figured she must be auditing, along with the other girl next to her who had been holding hands all class long with the Farnsworth kid. He’d never seen either of them before.

She looked bored, maybe a little annoyed, and juvenescent, though that could have been attributed to her small stature and the Stanford sweatshirt she was wearing that was several sizes too big, hanging off one shoulder. She looked young and girlish, with her red hair pulled back in a ponytail, as luxuriant and rich as a fox’s tail. Heavy black eyeliner and bangs teased just enough, she looked like one of the girls who wouldn’t have given him the time of day in high school. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

She caught him staring and instead of looking away, he held her gaze, raising his eyebrows and quirking up one side of his mouth in a smile. She raised one eyebrow herself and he could tell she was fighting a grin. She looked away on an amused breath. 

Dr. Brown started shuffling papers, a clear signal he was about to wrap up the lecture and dismiss class, so Fox Mulder stood and started collecting the assigned papers passed to aisle seats. She happened to be sitting on the end of the top row, so he saved her for last. 

He lingered a beat more than was necessary before heading back to the front of the classroom, his hand brushing hers as she handed the papers over. The hairs on his arm stood on end from the contact. 

Dr. Brown dismissed class, but asked Colin Farnsworth for a quick word, which meant that the girl and her friend stayed in the classroom, lingering near the door while they waited for him. 

He decided to take the opportunity presented him. He walked over after the last student had left the room, hefting his backpack over one shoulder. 

“Stanford, huh?” he asked her.

She traded looks with her companion who smirked. 

“Yep.”

“American?” He asked, surprised by her accent. 

“Yep.”

Just as he had to decide between pressing forward and giving up, Colin Farnsworth approached, beaming.

“Got the go-ahead to move forward with my thesis!” He grabbed the other girl around the waist and kissed her, there in the middle of the classroom. He looked to Mulder.

“You two have met Dr. Brown’s Teaching Assistant, then?” He plowed ahead without waiting for an answer. “This is Melissa Scully, and her sister Dana,” he said to Mulder, “They’re visiting from the States.” Nods all around and then he went on, excitedly. “Let’s go down the pub. We have to celebrate!”

Melissa nodded enthusiastically and Dana looked slightly pained. His eyes swung to Mulder.

“Would you care to join us?” 

He was surprised by Farnsworth’s invitation. He hadn’t done a lot of socializing since starting his post-grad program, and aside from questions about assignments or class, most of the students generally ignored him. 

He chanced a look at Dana and held her gaze.

“First round’s on me,” he said.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

Mulder found a way to sit near her at the table, leaving his backpack in the chair as a marker as he went up to the bar to buy their pints. 

When he returned to the table, Melissa and Colin had gone to talk to a friend Colin had spotted at a table in the corner and were soon leaning against the wall there talking intimately, heads bent together.

Mulder set a beer down in front of Dana, and sat down across from her, feeling weird about sitting right next to her in the seat he’d saved.

“That happen a lot?” he asked, nodding toward the couple.

“You have no idea,” she said, taking a cautious sip.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got my favorite,” he said, nodding toward the beer.

“It’s good, thanks,” she said, and looked about the bar, taking in the dark wood, the many pictures of students from the distant past.

“Oxford, huh?” She finally said, trying to make conversation.

He shrugged, taking in everything he could about her. The blue of her eyes, the light spray of freckles across her nose, how she had a double piercing in one ear but not the other.

“Crossing the ocean felt like the thing to do,” he said.

“What are you studying?”

“Psychology.”

She quirked an eyebrow at that.

He was about to ask her about herself when a hand came down on his shoulder from behind and he almost spilled his drink. He was about to spin around in a fit of pique when a familiar American accent spouted off behind him. 

“Is this guy bothering you, ma’am?” He smiled despite his irritation and turned in time to see the guy plunk casually down in the chair next to Dana, pushing Mulder’s backpack to the floor. 

“Jesus Christ, Burks,” he said.

“Mulder,” Chuck Burks said, smiling that beguiling grin that charmed the panties off of more than his fair share of women and diffused fights amongst men. He was a rabble rouser and a rake and cocksure for all of it, which was irritating as all fuck. Mulder liked him immensely. 

His charm was already working on Dana who was looking at him in amused intrigue. 

“Dana Scully, this is Chuck Burks, fellow Oxford-educated ex-pat and my current roommate.”

“I’m charmed, Dana,” he said, shaking her hand and holding it for far longer than etiquette dictated.

“Likewise,” she said, not at all seeming to mind. 

“All right, all right,” Mulder said, shoving him in the shoulder to get him to let go. 

“Don’t you have a class right now?” Burks asked Mulder, purposefully needling him.

“Don’t you?” Mulder shot back.

“Yeah, I definitely do,” he said, helping himself to one of the beers that Mulder had brought back for Melissa and Colin. When he set it down he looked back and forth between Mulder and Dana, not at all hiding his frank curiosity.

“What’s the story here?” he asked. 

Mulder wanted to strangle him, but Dana took it in stride, laughing a surprisingly goofy laugh and explaining how she and her sister were auditing Mulder’s class with her sister’s new boyfriend. 

“Are you a student here?” Burks asked when she finished, and she shook her head.

“Just here on vacation,” she said, and Mulder felt some hopes crash to the floor. 

“Where’s home?” 

Mulder marveled at Chuck’s easy way with people, how he could engage almost anyone in conversation, how people opened up so easily to him. Mulder listened to Dana’s answers, filing every bit of information away and hanging off her every word. 

Chuck asked how long they’d be staying in the UK. 

“We were supposed to go home two weeks ago. We really only came so Missy could experience the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge.”

It was nigh on mid-July already.

“Ah, the only day of the year they let you amongst the ruins,” said Chuck, leaning back in his chair. He had that look he usually got when he started waxing poetic. Mulder wondered how many beers he’d already had. If the guy’d been holding a guitar, he’d be casually strumming it.

“Right. She’s on a spiritual journey. Of sorts.” She looked uncomfortable saying it. Mulder raised his eyebrows, and she looked down. “We’ve had some family stuff. She needed this.”

“And what role do you play in this spiritual journey, Dana?” Mulder asked, finally working up the nerve.

She took a sip of beer.“Oh you know, annoying little sister, Celtic magic skeptic, unwanted chaperone; your average wet blanket.”

Mulder laughed and took a drink of his own. 

Chuck nodded towards Colin.

“And Farnsworth?” He asked. 

“He and Missy met at exactly sunrise at Stonehenge,” she had a look of amused disbelief, “they uh, have an intense ‘spiritual connection.’”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Mulder said, his voice low. Melissa and Colin were now making out in the corner. 

Dana caught what he said and smiled into her beer. Mulder thought he might be earning her grudging approval.

“No, that’s cool, man,” Chuck said, “that’s intense. That’s fate on a _ cosmic _level.”

“Burks is a big believer in fate,” Mulder said to her, draining the rest of his pint. 

“Fate is the goddess of Destiny,” Chuck said philosophically.

“What does that even mean?” Mulder ribbed him, but Chuck just sat back with a serene look on his face.

“You don’t believe in fate, Fox?” Dana said, looking at him directly. 

“I’m starting to,” he said quietly, when Chuck interrupted him.

“Fox?! You’re letting her call you Fox?” 

He could feel his ears burning in embarrassment. _ This fucking guy _.

Burks got up to use the bathroom, chuckling as he walked away. 

“Not a lot of people use your first name?” she asked in amused innocence.

“The list is short, but distinguished,” he said. 

“And Chuck isn’t on it?”

“No. But you’re welcome to be.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a person of distinction.”

“I have no doubt you already are,” he said, “the name ‘Fox’ on the other hand…”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, and then smiled into her glass as she took another sip. “I like it.”

Jesus she was beautiful, he thought. 

“Anyway,” she went on, “could be worse.”

He raised his eyebrows in question.

“Could be Bambi.”

He laughed, falling for her, hopeless. 

XxXxXxXxXxX 

Mulder let Chuck spring for another round and they were just finishing them when Dana leaned back in her chair and flashed a look of annoyance at her sister and Colin, who were still canoodling in the corner, oblivious and indiscreet. 

“I can’t with them anymore,” she said, and stood. “You guys are great, but I gotta get out of here.”

Mulder felt a brief moment of panic. He was suddenly sure he’d never see her again and was equally sure that would be a tragedy of the very highest order. He hoisted his backpack up over his shoulder and rose with her.

“Do you need to let them know you’re going?” he asked her.

She snorted an amused laugh.

“You think they’d actually notice?” she said. 

Chuck rose as well and walked out with them and then, after giving the two of them a thorough once over, saluted them both and turned on his heel without a word, walking away up the High Street.

“He’s an acquired taste,” Mulder said, hooking a thumb at Chuck’s retreating form.

“I like him,” Dana said with a smirk.

“It takes all kinds,” he responded in kind, and tucked both hands into his pockets and then touched her with an elbow. “Can I walk you home?” He felt like he might actually cry if she said no. 

“You can,” she said, to his immense relief, and then, glancing at her wrist watch, “though I’m not sure I’m quite ready to turn in at 4:30 in the afternoon.”

“A tour, then?” He asked hopefully.

“Why not?”

Feeling lighter than air, he turned toward Longwall Street and she walked beside him. They spoke companionably about where they grew up, what they’d lately been missing about the States, the ins and outs of their undergrad life. He was surprised to find out she was post-grad, if only just, having graduated from the University of Maryland only months ago. She was planning to start medical school at Stanford in the fall.

He found it surprisingly easy to open up to her; she had a way of looking at him as he was talking like she was listening—really listening—to what he had to say. He found himself listening to her in kind. Eventually he started talking to her about his family; his sister, his father, his mother, dead these last six years.

They found themselves at the gate of the Oxford Botanic Garden and he inclined his head toward it.

“Worth it if you haven’t been in,” he said.

She nodded and they wandered in, meandering through the manicured pebble lanes, discussing everything and anything.

He found himself so comfortable in her presence that when they got to the hothouse, he thought nothing of grabbing her hand and pulling her inside.

“Come on, this is cool,” he said.

To her credit and apparent equal ease, she let him.

They were the only ones inside, and the building was silent, felt cloistered and warm, like it was hovering on the edge of understanding, like it was keeping a wonderful secret.

They stopped in front of the lily pond, marveling at the size of some of the varieties.

She tucked her chin to her chest then and spoke softly.

“My dad would have loved it here.”

“Would have?” he asked, letting his shoulder bump hers, hoping she didn’t think he was prying.

“He died of a massive coronary last fall,” she said, keeping her eyes on the pond in front of them.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and found he was.

“It was tough on all of us, but Missy seemed to take it the hardest,” she said, “it’s why we’re here. Going to Stonehenge became this _ thing _. She’s always been really spiritual, into the older religions—the pagan stuff drove Mom nuts –and I think she got it into her head that she could commune with the Earth and Dad at the same time. Like they were one and the same. Mom let her go with the caveat that she take me with her.”

Mulder could tell there was more that she needed to say.

“And why you?” he asked quietly.

“I’ve been struggling too,” she said, looking down at her shoes, “I’ve just been a lot quieter about it.”

“Something tells me that’s your way,” Mulder said and she smiled sadly.

“It was Dad’s too.”

He let it hang there in the humid air.

“I’m thinking I might not want to go to medical school,” she finally said, in a rush, “I’m afraid it was his dream for me, not mine.”

She suddenly looked out of breath, and he put a hand gently on her back.

“Is that the first time you’ve said it out loud?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, bending forward like she might need to put her hands to her knees.

Suddenly she smiled and turned to look at him and he smiled back, almost beaming.

“How’d it feel?” he asked. 

“Jesus. Really, really good.”

“Atta girl.”

They were both smiling stupidly.

It was then he noticed the sky’s color. He looked at his watch.

“God, we’ve been out for hours,” he said.

“Have we?” she said, and looked at her own wrist. “The sunset’s still not for another hour or two.”

“If I’m not mistaken, we’re about to enjoy a nice English rainstorm,” he said, looking through the glass toward the sky. “How far is it to Colin’s? If we hurry, I can get you there before it starts.”

They hustled through the Garden and back out onto the High Street, making their way toward Colin’s flat in Park Town, and were just passing the University Parks when the skies opened.

They ran for about 30 seconds, the rain picking up in intensity when Mulder spotted a phone booth just ahead and gestured to it. She picked up what he was getting at right away and threw open the door as they got there, and he tumbled in after her, bumping up against her roughly as he tried to get the door closed behind them. He had to drop his backpack to the floor so that it would close.

They were out of breath and laughing just as an absolute deluge pounded the top of the booth.

XxXxXxXxXxX

She had her nose pressed into his chest and he smelled so good—like rain and laundry detergent and moschate—she didn’t even mind the height difference.

“God,” he said, trying to make their forced proximity a little less awkward, “I didn’t even realize we were talking so long, it’s almost like we—“

“Lost time?” She finished for him. “I know what you mean.”

He got a sharp, dauntless look in his eyes, followed by one of quiet affection, and for some reason it made her feel seen. Really seen. Like he was looking into the depths of her and liking what he saw. 

And then she just did it. She raised herself up onto her toes and pressed her lips to his. She felt him inhale in surprise and then slowly sink into the kiss like butter melting on hot toast. His lips were supple, tender, his full bottom lip the perfect cushy softness. It was like sliding into a warm bathtub after a long day. It was comfort and relief and a gentle bliss. It felt like coming home.

He brought a hand to rest gently on her waist and kissed her back, gently at first, and then thoroughly.

The rain continued to pound on the top of the phone booth and the only thought that ran through her mind was that he was her new favorite flavor.

Finally, he pulled back and she almost fell into him a bit, missing the contact.

“Wow,” he said, looking at her with a dumbstruck smile.

He was adorable, the kind of reserved, intellectual guy who didn’t know how handsome he was, the kind she was usually afraid to even talk to. She couldn’t believe she’d just up and kissed him like that. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into her.

“Can I see you again?” he asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.

She thought she’d like nothing better.

“Maybe Tuesday?” he went on, “I could take you out to dinner? Something nice?”

She nodded and smiled, thinking Tuesday seemed awfully far away. 

Later, when he’d dropped her at Colin’s door, he lingered on the doorstop for a moment and then said, “oh wait!”

She widened the door as he reached into his backpack, coming up with a ballpoint pen. He reached for her hand and she tried not to flinch as he wrote on it, the pen tickling her skin. When he finished, he hopped down the steps two at a time and shot her one last smile before making his way back down the street.

She closed the door on his retreating form and looked down at her hand.

He’d written:

“You can call me Fox if you want to” along with his phone number. She smiled to herself and bit her lip.


	2. Act Two

It was Saturday morning, two days since she’d kissed Fox Mulder in a phone booth in the rain.

Missy and Colin invited her to join them at a restaurant for breakfast that morning, where her sister spent the entirety of the meal grilling her about her afternoon with Colin’s teaching assistant, wanting to know every detail. It would have been a fun, sisterly thing to do if Colin hadn’t been sitting there, awkwardly pushing eggs around his plate while Missy asked how much tongue Mulder used when he kissed her.

She spent the entire walk back to Colin’s flat wanting to sink into her own shoes.

As they rounded the corner of Colin’s street, Melissa elbowed her gently. When she looked up, she found Mulder sitting on the doorstep, wearing a sheepish grin, his face full of hope and embarrassment.

“Can you guys give us a minute?” Dana said to Colin and Melissa. Her sister gave her a long look, a knowing grin and then followed Colin up the steps and into the flat. When the door closed, Mulder stood.

“I’m sorry, I hope this isn’t weird,” he said, “I know we’re supposed to see each other on Tuesday, but… I couldn’t wait.”

“I know what you mean,” she said, and he took a step down to join her on the sidewalk, smiling at her in relief.

“Want to go for a walk?” he asked her.

She surprised both of them by taking his hand, and he threaded his fingers through hers, giving them a squeeze.

“Where to?” she asked.

“I have no destination in mind,” he said, “right now, I’m more interested in the journey.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

They spent the entire afternoon wandering the streets of Oxford, talking, laughing. If she spent more than two seconds looking at something in the window of a store, Mulder pulled her into it and offered to buy the lot.

Finally, she tugged on his hand.

“I’m having a blast, and I don’t want our day to end,” she said, “but my feet are killing me.”

Mulder winced in sympathy and nodded toward a street to the Northwest.

“If you can make it two more blocks,” he said, “my flat is on that street. You can put your feet up and I can make you dinner? Or is that too presumptuous?”

“I don’t mind a little presumption,” she said, wondering why she didn’t mind it now, when she always had in the past.

Within minutes he was ushering her into the flat, whipping about around her, picking up clothes and various things that he swore had been left out by Chuck and not himself.

She kicked off her shoes and parked herself on his couch, taking in the Spartan décor, the cheap second-hand furniture. It looked like every other apartment of any college-aged guy she’d ever visited, minus, perhaps, a smattering of empty beer cans and spilled bong water.

Mulder popped into the small kitchen, banging around for several minutes before he came out, looking contrite.

“I regret to say that our current stock situation is a bit on the sparse side.”

“Let’s just order carryout,” she said, “I don’t mind.”

“No!” Mulder said, “I promised to make you dinner, and by God, I’m going to do it. How about you rest here, and I’ll pop out to Sainsbury’s and pick up dinner stuff?”

“You don’t have to put yourself out,” she said, kind of hoping he’d just join her on the couch.

“It’ll take me twenty minutes tops!” He said, shoving his feet back into a pair of trainers and grabbing his keys.

She smiled at him and he was out the door, a sudden quiet overtaking the space.

She took a few minutes to rub her feet, and then decided to snoop a bit, popping her head into the first bedroom which was unmistakably Chuck’s, papered with Grateful Dead posters, red scarves draped over both lampshades.

She wandered into a short hallway and peeked into what she assumed must be Mulder’s bedroom. The bed was made neatly, a desk pushed against one wall stacked with papers and books with a radio on a shelf above it, tuned to a pop station, volume turned low. 

She was about to wander in when a phone sounded from the living room, the ring shrill and jarring. She jumped, startled and guilty, and headed back to her place on the couch.

She glanced at her watch. He’d already been gone the allotted 20 minutes.

His phone continued to ring and he still hadn’t returned. Finally, a little unnerved, she just picked it up.

“Hello?” She answered. Was that the appropriate greeting here? She wasn’t sure.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then, finally…

“Fox?” It was a young woman’s voice, surprised and –maybe she was imagining it—a little suspicious.

“He’s not here right now,” she said.

“I’ll… I’ll call back.” American accent.

_ Click _ .

She returned the phone to its cradle.

Just then the door opened and he entered, arms burdened with several grocery bags.

“Sainsbury’s was packed and I got way too much,” he said, a little breathless, kicking the door closed with his foot. “You do okay?”

She nodded at him.

He hauled the bags into the small kitchen and dumped them on the floor, then pulled two bottles out from them and held them up to her.

“Do you like red or white? I wasn’t sure.” Then, like he thought better of it, said, “Jesus, do you even like wine?”

She laughed and moved to help him unload everything he’d bought.

“Neither will go to waste,” she said and he smiled at her, relieved.

As she lined up items on his countertop, not really sure where to put anything away, she said casually, “so, do you get many students bugging you at home?”

“They barely bother to hit up my office hours,” he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone show up here.”

She wasn’t sure if she should press, but decided to anyway.

“Do they call?”

“I don’t give out my home number,” he said. Then looked at her, seeming to see what she was getting at. “Why?”

“You had a call while you were out. I answered it, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” he said, taking the things she was lining up and putting them in various cupboards, “who was it?”

“They didn’t say,” she was starting to feel stupid for even bringing it up, “kind of hung up on me.”

“Well,” he said, reaching around her to grab a box of pasta, and she thrilled a bit at the close proximity, “I’m sure it was just a wrong number.”

She realized that she’d never actually inquired as to whether or not he had a girlfriend or was dating anyone, and now she felt too stupid to ask. She hated her own insecurity. 

She smiled at him, trying to buck herself up.

“So what’s for dinner?” she said, “Am I in for a treat?”

“Depends on your definition of ‘treat,’” he said, “but it’ll be hot and edible.”

He was hot and edible, she thought, and then blushed. What was the matter with her? Guys normally didn’t get under her skin like this. 

XxXxXxXxXxX 

It was like having an addiction, and she was the drug. Every time he saw her, touched her, talked to her, he got another hit. Got a little bit higher. He was pretty sure she felt the same way.

After he made her dinner at his apartment, they sat on his couch talking for hours, always touching each other in some way. Chuck came and went, barely a blip on their radar. He walked her home, loathe to part with her.

He had known her less than a week.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

He took her out on Tuesday, as promised, and asked to see her again the next day. 

On Wednesday, after class, he took her to a quiet pub on the outskirts of town just for a change in scenery. There were fewer students, fewer people, and they had the place mostly to themselves.

They settled into a table in the far corner of the place, dark and intimate and off what was obviously an impromptu dance floor. 

“A jukebox,” she said, nodding toward the new-looking device taking up too much space in the old public house. 

“How American,” Mulder said with amused disdain.

They sat and talked as more people came in, workers getting out of their 9-to-5s. 

She got up to use the bathroom and when she came back, Van Morrison’s “Caravan” came on the jukebox, and Mulder stood and silently reached a hand toward her. She put hers in his and she was pulled into his arms. She settled easily into his embrace and he swayed her slowly and gently, the only people on the small dance floor. Neither really cared. 

When Van sang “turn it up,” he twirled her out and she felt her stomach do a flip. He pulled her back in and there was a huge grin on his face and something sharp in his eyes, something tender and hungry.

It was then that she noticed the body language of a young woman at the bar over his shoulder. There was a man in a suit standing next to her, too close for a stranger, and she was avoiding eye contact with him. It took her about ten more seconds of observing their interaction before she turned to Mulder and said, “give me a second and just go with it.”

She walked up to the woman and grabbed her elbow.

“Hey! I thought that was you! We’ve been waiting for you for like twenty minutes. Come on, we’ve got a table.”

The woman looked at Dana gratefully and grabbed her drink, following her back to the table where Mulder was waiting. Mulder waved to them as they were walking over, playing along like a champ.

When they made to sit down, he kept a smile on his face but said “he’s looking over here. Do you guys want to see if there’s a back door?”

They walked toward the toilets, and Dana introduced herself.

“Kandi,” the woman said. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Dana felt her hackles raise.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be no back door, so they made their way casually back toward the front of the pub.

“Do you want to hang out with us, or try to make a getaway?” Dana asked her.

“To be honest, I just want to go home,” Kandi replied, and Dana put her hand through the woman’s elbow.

“Then that’s what we’re going to do,” she said, and before she could even wrap her head around what was happening, the man stepped into their path.

“Oi,” he said, “I’m trying to buy the girl a drink. What’s your problem?”

Dana saw red and stepped into his face.

“She doesn’t want your drink --what’s yours?”

The man seemed so taken aback by her aggression that he instinctually backed up a step, which only encouraged her.

“I SAID WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?” Dana repeated, shoving a finger into the guy’s chest.

“I… I don’t have one,” he fumbled.

“Then unless you want one, you’re going to walk back to the fucking bar and not look back,” she felt powerful, taller than anyone in the room though she was probably the opposite. She felt her nostrils flare and chanced a look at Mulder, who was sitting back in his chair, looking impressed and immeasurably pleased.

The man took one step backwards and then just made his way back to the bar as if in a daze. He hadn’t really known what had hit him and Dana hadn’t really known what had gotten into her, but she turned to Kandi and said, quite calmly, “have a great night, Kandi.”

Kandi thanked her, making quickly for the exit, and Dana floated back to their table on a haze of leftover fury, still riled as a gator. Mulder stood as she approached the table.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

In his mind’s eye, he saw her on a battlefield, sword raised high, hair whipping around her like Prometheus’s flame. She was a Valkyrie, an Amazon, Athena. Armor of rose gold, a crown atop her head; she could slay a man with a look. 

He couldn’t help but grin. She caught the look on his face, her anger still piqued. 

“ _ What _ ?” 

“You’re amazing.”

“What do you mean?” Her anger was slowly shifting to confusion. 

“You, Dana,” he said, “the way you took that guy apart. You’re fearless, and purposeful and you might be the noblest person I’ve ever met.” 

She started to shift uncomfortably on her feet, her eyes downcast. She clearly wasn’t used to compliments like this, so he took a step toward her, invaded her personal space and lowered his voice.

“I love it,” he said to her, his gut dropping at what he was about to say. “I love  _ you _ .”

She whipped her eyes up to his, her mouth dropping in surprise. 

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he felt relief and conviction, a surety in himself he’d never felt before.

“I do,” he went on, “I fucking love you. I know we haven’t known each other long, and if you want to hit me, or take me apart like that guy,” he nudged his chin at the back of the man’s retreating form, “you go ahead. But I’m not going anywhere. Because this is the realest, truest thing in my life—probably ever—and I won’t let it go. I can’t.”

She reached up, as if to push him away and he steeled himself. Instead, she grabbed his shirt in two handfuls and yanked his face down to her own, kissing him with an intensity that made his blood sing. 

“Take me home with you,” she whispered into his lips, “right now.”

  
  


XxXxXxXxXxX 

She knew right where his bedroom was, so once they were inside his flat, she grabbed his hand and pulled him there.

The music was playing softly on the small radio and his room looked as it had when she’d been here the other day.

She chanced a glance at him and he looked a little surprised. She decided to surprise him some more.

She shimmied off her jeans and kicked them aside and stood before him in nothing but her tee shirt and panties. He stood there with his mouth half open. She pushed him up against the door and kissed him boldly, her body still thrumming with the adrenaline rush of her encounter with the lecherous asshole in the bar, of her decision to do what she was doing, right here, right now.

“Take off your pants,” she said in a voice that brokered no argument. 

To her amusement, he hopped-to, kicking off his own pants, and whipping his shirt over his head for good measure. His body was lithe, muscle-dappled, his skin lightly tanned and dusted with dark hair in all the right places. His boxers were tented with an impressive erection and he finally smiled at her.

“What next, sergeant?” he said goofily, and she laughed at him, whatever awkward tentativeness in the room disappearing in that moment.

“Come here and kiss me,” she said, and he moved to her slowly, seeming to drink her in as he approached.

He grabbed her face gently and lowered his face to hers. “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, and kissed her.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

He was dreaming. He had to be. It was the only thing that could account for this weightless feeling even as she sat down on the mattress, pulling him with her, not breaking contact. After a few minutes of kissing and gentle exploration, she stood suddenly and walked to his radio, cutting it off mid-song, the silence sudden and jarring. He looked at her questioningly. 

“I’m not losing my virginity to ‘99 Luft Balloons,’” she said, pulling at her shirt. 

“Your virginity?” he asked, his words weighty, his tone surprised.

Her cheeks colored noticeably in the dimly lit room. 

“Is that a problem?” She all but dared him.

Her eyes were narrowed at him, and she stood defiant and fiery in nothing but her pink panties with her tee shirt hanging off one shoulder, daring him to have a single problem. If there was anything sexier in the world, his mind drew a blank. 

“I… no,” he answered, glancing at the trail of clothes strewn from the door to his bed. 

“Listen,” she said, sinking down on the bed next to him, “I’ve been to third plenty of times, I’ve just… never quite crossed the plate.” 

His dick hardened even more at her admission, seeming to reach for her a little in an attempt for its own at-bat. He reached out a finger and ran it along her bared shoulder. He saw gooseflesh break out on her skin. 

“Listen, you’re going to make your own decisions, I’m just happy to be the recipient of… whatever sports analogy feels right to you, here,” he finished lamely.

She smiled and squeezed her eyes closed, her nose crinkling in an adorable display of both amusement and embarrassment. 

“I probably could have put that more delicately,” she said.

He propped himself up on an elbow. 

“Are you kidding? I’m picturing you in nothing but a Yankees’ away jersey, and I’m three seconds away from embarrassing myself on a really personal level.”

She smiled and narrowed her eyes at him. 

He held up two fingers in a Boy Scout salute. 

“Have dick, will travel,” he said.

She swung a leg over his hip and pushed him back onto the pillows.


	3. Act Three

Holy shit, he wasn’t kidding, he was about three seconds away from coming into his boxers. 

She was kissing him deeply and reached a hand down to wrap around his cock. He grabbed her wrist and pulled it gently back. 

“No,” he whispered into her lips, “tonight is going to be about you.”

He kept his grip on her wrist and moved it to his mouth so he could press a gentle kiss into her pulse point. She sat up, still straddling him and smiled down sweetly. 

He reached down with both hands and lightly fingered the bottom of her shirt.

“Can we dispense with this?” 

She nodded and he swept it up over her head. When she lowered her arms, she reached back and unhooked her bra, letting it fall down both arms before she tossed it gently to the floor. 

“Have mercy,” he said. 

He brought a hand up to her breast and lifted gently, feeling its weight. She leaned into him. Her skin was flawless, her nipples erect, like wild raspberries about to fall from the vine. She was like an idol, something to be worshipped, prayed to, sacrificed for. She licked her lips nervously and his cock strained at the sight. 

“Hold on tight,” he said, and surged up with his hips, wrapping his arms around her lower back and flipping their positions expertly. 

She gave a short shriek of fright and then laughed. 

“Have you been practicing that move?” she asked. 

“For this exact moment,” he laughed back at her. 

He looked at her then and felt something inside him shift. Something heavy and true. He would look back on it years into the future and be able to point to it, to that moment right then and call it providence or kismet or predestination. This was something more than love.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

He had a queer look in his eye, something that made her stomach drop low in her gut, even as he crawled along her body, planting a soft kiss on her lips before moving his own down her chin and neck. 

She could feel the hairs on his chest slowly drag down her body as well, a feather-light scrape of pleasure, chased slowly south by his lips—soft, sucking and wet. 

He rolled her nipples between his fingers and she tried not to groan aloud. 

She chanced a look down and found him looking back at her, his nose pressed into the skin of her stomach.

“Can I taste you?” he asked her, his voice muffled by her skin, the low rumble of it sending waves of desire to her womb.

“You don’t have to,” she said.

“Are you kidding?” he said, lifting his chin and resting it on her, “there is literally nothing in the world I want to do more.”

She gave him a slow smile and he returned it, then moved his attention back to her and slowly kissed his way down between her legs.

Her heart was pounding as he stuck his tongue into the fabric of her panties, the friction of the cloth doing unexpected things to her, and then he took his teeth and pulled the fabric away from her body, looking her dead in the eye the entire time. He grinned like a shark and then used his hand to pull the scrap of fabric the rest of the way off her.

He was back before she could put together a coherent thought, and as he ran his tongue along her seam, she knew she was slick as a ripe peach. He groaned his approval. 

Previous boyfriends had gone down on her before, but never with this level of enthusiasm. It had always smacked of obligation. Tit, as it were, for tat. It was turning her on to an alarming degree; she hoped she wouldn’t embarrass herself.

He ran his hands under her ass, lifting slightly, encouraging her to open more to him. She chanced another look down and he looked reverential, like he was taking communion and her body was the holy chalice. He glanced up and caught her looking and she could see the smile reach his eyes. He applied himself to her with a renewed sense of vigor. 

She reached down and ran a hand through his feathery hair, a caress, and then let her head fall back against the pillows. She could feel an orgasm slowly building, but she wanted to enjoy this. She’d never felt so worshipped, so loved. 

He ran a hand slowly up her inner thigh, which quivered under his touch. And then, very gently, he pushed one finger up inside of her, curling it into her sex. Her hips bucked involuntarily and, encouraged, he added a second finger, pumping them into her as his tongue laved her clit. 

Later, she would laugh at the cliche, but her toes actually curled into the mattress as an orgasm overtook her, and she shouted his name, holding onto the ‘X’ as stars burst behind her eyes, no longer caring about embarrassment, about anything. 

He slowed his movements but didn’t stop as the waves slowed down and she finally had to give his forehead a gentle nudge with her hand when the sensitivity became too much. 

She let out a long exhale, and when she finally opened her eyes, his face was near hers, the skin of his chin glistening in the dim light, looking at her with a mix of both adoration and conceit. 

“You look awfully pleased with yourself,” she said, when she finally felt like she could speak. 

“Oh, I think you’re awfully pleased with me too,” he said, assuaging the swagger of his words with a kiss to her shoulder. 

“Cocky,” she said to him, smiling.

“You have no idea,” he said, with an expression that made her laugh. 

When the smile was fading from her lips, she felt a seriousness overtake them both. The sounds from the street below his window slowed to silence, as if the world had stopped suddenly to listen, the air around them filled with anticipation, with the enormity of what was about to happen. Dana knew it was an inevitability. Chuck Burks would have called it fate. 

“Now,” was all she said, and he nodded, quickly donned a condom, and moved over her, positioning himself at her entrance as he held her face gently with both hands, looking her in the eye and waiting for her go-ahead. 

She searched his eyes and nodded infinitesimally, pulling him down so her lips met his, and she tasted herself on his tongue as he slowly pushed his way inside her. 

It felt heavenly until it didn’t, but she’d always known what to expect, the offshoot undercard of Adam’s rib, of a bite from the apple. She knew there wasn’t any place she’d rather be, no thing she’d rather be doing, no person she’d rather be with. 

He slowly increased his pace, and after a minute he leaned back to look at her and the slight new angle caught her off guard. She winced, while trying not to. 

“Am I hurting you?” She heard him ask.

“Yes,” she said on a breath, truthfully, and he stilled instantly, “But… don’t stop. It’s… it’s getting better,” she lied.

He resumed his movements and she could tell he was being as slow and gentle as was humanly possible, most likely in discordance with his body’s natural urges.

She felt a surge of affection for him, and pulled his head toward her own.

They connected eyes and she felt a thrill in her womb which he must have picked up on because he started pumping into her faster, harder, and suddenly the pain did start to get better, easing a bit with every thrust until she felt something that was still pain, but perhaps a cousin to pleasure. 

She kissed him, plunging her tongue into his mouth, urging him on. 

“I can’t,” he said, breathless, “I’m gonna…”

He tensed and pulled his lips back incrementally from hers, their foreheads pressed together, his hands framing her face as he came, whispering her name between oaths to divinity and recitations of profanity. 

He sank into her when he finished, keeping a bit of weight on his forearms so as not to crush her. 

“Jesus,” he mumbled into the side of her neck before pulling back. “Was that… Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, pressing a kiss to his temple, “I’m great.  _ It  _ was great.”

He smiled at her and rolled off of her to the side, collapsing on the bed with his arms flung wide, the very picture of sated, post-coital bliss. 

She shifted, and made to stand, grabbing his tee shirt off the floor and put it on, leaning over to kiss him sweetly. 

“I gotta pee,” she said, and padded her way out the door and toward his bathroom, surprised to find it in a decent state of cleanliness. 

She cleaned herself up as best she could with toilet paper and water from the sink, peed with only a minimal amount of discomfort and headed back to Mulder’s room, standing a bit taller.

When she entered the room, he was standing at the end of the bed, staring down at himself, a look of concern on his face. 

There was blood on the condom he was wearing, a ring of it like a high water mark near the base of his penis. 

He looked up at her, the look on his face like he was the one who’d been hurt. 

“Dana, are you…” he said, “I’m so fucking sorry.” 

“I’m not,” she said, meaning it.

“That,” she gestured to his groin, as he disposed of the condom, “was inevitable. Hazards of two X chromosomes.”

He reached for her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms.

“I just don’t like the idea that I hurt you,” he said. 

“Yeah, well, before that you also gave me the most exquisite orgasm of my young life.”

He quirked a small smile at her.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He leaned down and nipped lightly at her lips.

“I can do better,” he mumbled.

“Mmm,” she said, moving toward the bed and sliding under sheets that smelled of him, of them, “It’s good to have goals.” 

He slid in behind her without a word and pressed a kiss into the shallow hollow behind her earlobe, wrapping an arm around her. 

“Do you feel different?” He asked at a whisper after a few minutes.

She did. Cataclysmically different. Changed on a cellular level. It had nothing to do with her recently lost maidenhead, or any kind of patriarchal, bullshit shedding of innocence.

Dana Scully was in love. 

XxXxXxXxXxX 

_ “Dana Katherine Scully, you wrote a sex scene!” _

_ He looked up from the notebook where they were writing their story, his face one of impressed surprise.  _

_ She rubbed a hand over her swollen abdomen and gave him a puckish grin. _

XxXxXxXxXxX 

When she woke there was a pleasant warmth behind her. She rolled onto her back, stretching as she did so. The ache between her legs had lessened, now only a hint, a reminder of what they’d done a few hours ago.

The world was dark outside his window, the pale yellow glow of streetlights shining in. She wondered what time it was.

She turned and found his head close to hers on the other pillow, stomach down on the mattress, one arm flung out, a gentle weight across her middle. He was breathing lightly through his nose, a flop of hair lying over his brow. She couldn’t help but reach out and brush it back.

He inhaled and his eyes fluttered open, the light brush of her fingers waking him.

He tensed the arm flung across her, pulling her into him.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

“Hi,” she responded, and he pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “What time is it?”

He reached across her, picking up his watch from the bedside table next to her.

“Almost five,” he said, squinting at it in the dim light, and kissed her shoulder again, “go back to sleep.”

She stretched once again, cat-like, but didn’t feel the least bit tired.

“Nah,” she said, turning toward him, “Can’t sleep.”

“There’s a great little French boulangerie a couple streets over that opens at 6:00, if you like coffee,” he said, “but we’ve got some time to kill.”

She reached for him, “I can think of one or two things we could do to pass the time…”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Forty five minutes later they ventured out of his flat and into the pink light of dawn, the rays of the newly risen sun painting rosy hues on the sides of the newspaper truck rumbling down the street, stopping every now and then to drop a thick stack in front of a newsstand or store front. They seemed to be the only people about aside from a few bleary-eyed neighbors shuffling after leashes that were attached to much more awake dogs.

They held hands as they walked in silence, stealing occasional glances at each other. 

Mulder finally pulled her into a cheery red door, the unassailable smell of fresh yeasty bread and percolating coffee hitting her as soon as she walked in. They were the first two patrons of the morning and grabbed a table by the window, quickly tucking in to flaky croissants and espresso.

“I can’t tell you how well I slept last night after two weeks on Colin’s sofa,” she said, her tongue darting out to catch a flake of pastry on the corner of her mouth.

His eyes followed her tongue and it took him a moment to respond.

“There’s a pillow with your name on it at my place any time,” he said.

She smiled at him.

“And actually, I was thinking…” He tapered off, like he’d lost the nerve to continue saying what he’d started to.

“You were thinking?”

He took a deep breath and leaned back in the small wooden chair which creaked under his weight.

“I hope this doesn’t seem too forward, but Chuck and I were supposed to go up to Scotland for a long weekend in a few days – there are a few distilleries up there he’s been wanting to check out because for some reason he thinks drinking scotch will make him more appealing to girls, but… Anyway, Chuck can’t go anymore, something about a make-up exam with a female professor, but anyway, we already have the train tickets and hotel reserved...”

She looked at him expectantly.

He finally smiled at himself and reached out to brush a few fingers gently over the back of her hand.

“Would you like to go with me?”

She’d done a few trips with big groups of friends before, but had never gone away with just a guy. It felt grown up and sophisticated. It scared her a little.

“I’d love to,” she said, and he beamed at her, “so long as the distillery visits aren’t compulsory?”

“Consider them canceled,” he said, threading his fingers through hers. “We have the 9:25am train up Friday morning. And I promise, not a sofa in sight.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

  
  


They stepped inside the hotel and she looked around like maybe they’d walked into the wrong place. He would not tell her that he’d cancelled the reservation at the cheap, hostel-like hotel he and Chuck had reserved, and instead booked a room at one of the nicest hotels in Edinburgh, blowing more than twice his monthly food budget on two nights of unaffordable bliss.

He checked in nonchalantly, not wanting to tip his hand, but was secretly just hoping his credit card cleared. When the front desk clerk had him sign the register and passed over a room key, wishing them a pleasant stay, his relief was sweet. 

Before they met at the train station that morning, he hadn’t seen her in two days, and he felt her absence acutely, like he was on the verge of withdrawal.

On the train they’d sat with heads bent together, fingers laced. He’d gone to the dining car and bought dry sandwiches and a couple cans of lager, but it did little to assuage his hunger. When he unlocked their hotel room and the door closed behind him, he grabbed her around the waist and said “I can’t make any promises, but I’m going to try not to jump your bones until a reasonable hour.”

“And what exactly would be a reasonable hour?” She countered, turning in his arms to face him, her eyes hooded with desire.

It was the only encouragement he needed.

After, when they were lying on the exquisitely comfortable mattress in nothing but a thin sheet of sweat, he grabbed her hand and ran his thumbnail along her palm.

“Why can’t I get enough of you?” he asked.

“According to my biology classes,” she said, “it’s a combination of oxytocin and vasopressin, with a little testosterone and estrogen thrown in for good measure. Maybe a chaser of dopamine.”

He tipped his head back and chuckled.

“You make it sound so romantic,” he said.

“If you like that, you should read my blue books,” she responded, batting her eyelashes at him like a coquette.

“I had an itinerary,” he said, “but I’m starting to rethink ever leaving this room.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

In the end, they ventured out for sustenance; a cheap lunch and then just exploring the city on foot. They walked the Royal Mile and then ventured lower into the rest of the city, strolling and talking.

The skies were grey, overcast. The temperature was warm but humid, the weather on the verge of something. Townspeople all but disappeared into shops and restaurants at the same time and they found themselves on the deserted streets wondering what was happening when rain started in a torrent, soaking them so instantly that they stopped and looked at each other, wondering what exactly had happened.They made for a nearby doorway which ended up being a joke shop and catch-all store. They were surrounded by a little bit of everything.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mulder said, shaking loose water from his hands and arms as they walked in, his shirt clinging to him like a second skin.

“Why does this keep happening to us?” Dana laughed, pushing water out of her eyes, and slicking back her soaked hair.

“You look like you two could use an umbrella,” said a voice with a soft burr from behind them and they turned to find the shopkeeper, who pointed to a corner of the store replete with an ample selection of large, black umbrellas.

“They’re all so dull,” Dana said, looking over the selection.

Mulder shrugged.“They’re British,” he said.

Finally, in the back corner of the stand that held them all, Dana pulled up the wooden handle of one that had been shoved in upside-down, and found, as she was pulling it up that the umbrella was not only not-black, but that each section of it was a different color of the rainbow.

“Now we’re talking,” Mulder said, and smiled at her. “You like it?

She nodded and he turned to the shopkeeper.

“How much?” he asked.

“Fifteen quid,” the man said, and Mulder balked.

The man shrugged.

“Supply and demand. I’m not the one stuck in the rain.”

Mulder shot him a look, but handed over the money, and they made their way back out into the street, Mulder holding the umbrella a little bit more over her than himself. 

Her hair started curling as it dried, wisps coiling toward her face like they didn’t get close enough to her the first time and decided to come back for another try. 

He studied her as they made their way back to the hotel; the shape of her Roman nose, the way her lip rose slightly higher on one side than the other, the sharp point of her chin. He memorized the angle of her cheekbone, the way the light played off the copper of her hair, the way she clomped the heel of her shoe as she walked down the cobbled street. He thought he might see forever in the soft flare of her hip.

He’d always heard the old saying “when you know, you know,” used by those who had fallen in love quickly, and he’d scoffed at the simplicity of that—humans were too complex, too flawed, what he’d seen of the world and people that were in it too scattered and fatuous to put any stock into the thought that you could meet your one and only and instantly know that’s who they were.

How wrong he’d been. He himself had been scattered and fatuous to a fault. He’d only just met her, and he knew.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The next day they’d decided to make their way early to the small village of Dollar, having heard from a waitress the night before of the ancient castle that could be found on the top of the mountainside just outside the village which wasn’t far away.

It was no more than a few closed storefronts and a pub, which had an aging sun-faded bumper sticker stuck to its window that said “I spent a few pounds in Dollar!”

They were about to head inside to ask directions to the castle when the door opened and an old man came out, doffing a houndstooth cap and squinting in the sun. They asked him where they might find the castle and he pointed silently toward an opening in the middle of the woods, the trees bent over the trailhead like coronal loops of emerald, the path to the castle looking like a portal to some other world, inviting and mysterious.

“Come on,” Mulder whispered, grabbing her hand and pulling her along with him. There was some magic in the air here, something ancient and close at hand. He was convinced that if you turned your head just right, you could see it slipping into the woods like a specter.

After a short walk, the trail bent and ran along a river that was racked with boulders covered in moss, the water purling along swiftly on a trip to some distant shore. He glanced down at her and she returned his look; whatever it was about this place, he knew she could feel it too.

They carried on silently, still holding hands as the path took a sudden tack up, and they were forced to climb more slowly, the temperature of the air going incrementally down with every step they took up.

And then suddenly the path ended and opened up to a wide field of green hills, the castle perched at the top of them like Avalon, an immutable block of grey stone set upon an undulating sea of green grass, reaching up into the sky.

They paused simultaneously, each taken with the sight.

“Wow,” Dana said, the first to break the silence. Mulder had worried that any sound might have broken the spell of the place, but her wonder-filled voice just added to it. If before he saw her as a warrior queen, here she was a fairy, a sprite, a carmine-haired dryad who floated along the ground but didn’t walk upon it.

“Should we go inside?” he asked, his voice still a whisper. She nodded. 

They walked up the steps and into a cobbled courtyard and then up several more flights of covered stone steps. They saw few people, each one shuffling just out of sight as they passed them. It felt like the castle was here for them and them alone, set in their path purely so they would come across it. 

They climbed as far as they could and found on the top floors what could have been bed chambers, with ceilings that arched 40 feet above their heads. The rooms were empty, but for the sight, directly above them, of faces carved into the stone ceiling, depicting bearded faces with protuberant mouths, which had once held candelabras and other ancient light fixtures. They were unsettling, the only thing left in the space. Dana studied them for a moment and then asked if he minded exploring the outside rather than the in. 

He was ready for anything so long as she was, and nodded encouragingly at her.

They made their way out of the castle and let their legs carry them wherever they may, which turned out to be one of the adjacent, bare hillsides which was alternately shrouded in fog and bathed in sun. It looked out on the village of Dollar when the air cleared, and felt enclosed and insular when the fog swirled in, a patch of bright green meant for them and them only.

Mulder surprised her with a blanket and small picnic lunch from the small pack he’d carried with him since they left Oxford, pulling out each item with a dramatic flourish, saving the coup de gras of a bottle of wine and two dented Dixie cups for the finale. She was smiling and applauding by the time he’d finished, and he felt appropriately abashed and pleased with himself, spreading out the simple fare before her like an offering to the gods. 

She spread herself out on the blanket like comfort personified, curling her legs up and propping her head up on an elbow. She fit easily on the blanket, and of course he didn’t, and spent fifteen full seconds deciding if it would be more comfortable sacrificing his upper self or lower to the humectant assault of the grass, eventually deciding that he’d rather his eyes be level with hers, and lopping his shins and feet over the edge of the blanket.

She helped herself to several pieces of fruit, every move of her lips and mouth more sensual than the last, and Mulder found himself staring at her like a lecher, and covered for it by opening the bottle of Merlot he’d been saving for a special occasion.

They drank and ate and talked, slowly drifting toward each other as time wore on, until they were only inches apart, warmed by wine and proximity, and it was a simple act of gravity that caused his lips to tilt into hers.

Fog rolled over them, and when Mulder glanced up he could barely see the ground next to him much less anything nearby. When he looked back down at her, her mouth was open, her breathing fast.

“I want you,” she said, and they were suddenly caught up with each other, with the headlong lustfulness of youth and she was pulling at his pants as he shoved her shirt and bra up just enough that he could get his lips on her, his mouth pulling and sucking on every inch.

They’d barely gotten their pants to their knees before he careened into her. She was wet and tight and clawed at his back even as she shoved her tongue in his ear and he pounded into her, her breasts bouncing with each thrust.

She brought her fingers to her mouth and licked them, a string of saliva stretching from her mouth as she then reached down and touched herself. He groaned at the sight and encouraged her, his forearms and biceps burning as he held himself above her, trying to give her the right angle.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back and he knew she was close, could feel the tension in her hips and then she was there, her low keen sending him over the edge.

He pulled out only just in time, spilling his seed inelegantly on her bare stomach, feeling ruttish and crude for doing so. She ran her fingers affectionately through the sparse hair behind his ears, not seeming to mind, and he reached for one of the napkins he’d brought and cleaned her up carefully, his touch reverential and light.

He pressed a kiss to the skin just above her navel and tucked himself back into his pants, the clouds above them parting, the blue of the sky widening, gem-like and bright, like the heavens themselves had insulated their privacy for exactly as long as they needed.

He laid back on the blanket, the sun washing over them both. She pulled her shirt and bra back down and rolled until her head was tucked into the V of his shoulder, slinging a leg over one of his, sighing a contented sigh.

“Was it good for you?” she said in a low voice, and he chuckled, pressing a kiss into her temple.

“If it was any better, I think I would have blacked out.”

They lay there, letting the rays of the sun warm them for a quiet ten minutes, just being.

He surprised himself by speaking.

“My mom died six years ago,” he said, and he felt her eyes on him, felt her listening to him in quiet empathy. “It all started before that, though.”

She scratched her fingernails lightly on his chest, urging him to go on.

“My sister was 8. I was 12. That’s when it started. Mom disappeared one night. No one remembered how it happened, but when we all woke up the next morning, she was gone. She came back two weeks later, not at all herself. My sister described it as  _ sideways _ . ‘Mom came back sideways,’ she would say. For a day or two she would rant and rave, go on and on about her ‘abduction,’ the experiments they did on her. The weirdest, most off-putting things a kid could hear his mother say; she said it. Then a day or two after that she was back to normal again, and we would pretend to be normal, too.”

He could hear her breathing next to him, even and deep. He matched his breath to hers, centering himself on her, and continued.

“It happened six or seven times over the next five years. She would disappear, come back sideways, and then go back to normal. Our grades fell, both Sam’s and mine. Eventually Dad had her committed.”

He could feel Dana reach out blindly with her hand and found his, squeezed it.

“She found a doctor there she really liked, put in a lot of effort, got better. I was really proud of her. Not that I could say anything – how do you put voice to that? How can you say it to your friends? Yourself? Even your own mom? ‘I’m proud of you for confronting the crazy, Mom. Way to go, beating your delusions!’”

“It was good for about a year and then… She got a nosebleed at my high school graduation. Collapsed in the auditorium.”

He could feel Dana’s hot tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt. The woman was empathetic to a fault and he loved her for it.

“She died of a rare form of cancer two months later.”

“I’m sorry, Fox,” she said to him, and he knew she meant it.

“I started school here a month after that. I haven’t been back to the States since.” She squeezed his hand again. “Sometimes I wonder if my sister even remembers what I look like.”

He’d never told a soul what he’d just told her. Any of it. He barely told people his mom had died, much less about what had happened to her the few years preceding her death.

“Do you want to go back,” she asked, “do you think?”

“Going back scares the shit out of me,” he said. “It makes no sense. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but just thinking of boarding a plane West makes my heart pound.”

“Well, you know, I quite like it here,” she said easily, standing up, and he thought his heart might burst.

He rose with her and wrapped his arms around her, reveling in her warmth. He looked out over the now clear green hills and pressed a kiss to her forehead, glad that forever seemed like an awfully long time. 

XxXxXxXxXxX 

_ There was a certain catharsis, writing this alternate version of their lives, she realized. A chance to explore the way things might have been, if different choices had been made. Who was to say some of these things might not have come to pass? _

_ She set down the notebook and looked over at Mulder, asleep on the couch, Daggoo settled into his side; this man she had loved for 25 years, as peaceful and happy as she had ever seen him, though his life was scattered with tragedy and defeat. _

_ Even now, when their lives seemed to be drifting away from calamity, the darkness of the world seemed to still find ways to creep in. She thought of the hulking figure of Edmund Peacock standing in their living room, the shadow of a creature flitting over them from the treetops. (She would not allow herself to think about what lurked, even now, in the Oval Office). _

_ They had many years of joy ahead, she was sure, but reimagining what might have happened in the past brought them, if not happiness, some cousin to it. _


	4. Act Four

She wasn’t used to this feeling. She tried to be objective about it; told herself it was human pair bonding, a mix of hormones and chemicals, that there was a scientific reason for this thing that felt like destiny, that felt like fate. 

She was used to caring, used to wanting to help people, but her focus had turned singular, laser-like, her sights set only on him. It wasn’t like her. 

She was also thrown by the urges he seemed to evoke in her. Since she’d gotten to Scotland she felt like she was in a constant state of estrus, every moment around Fox Mulder made her feel libidinous and wanting. 

Who and what was she becoming? She was both excited and afraid to find out.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

It was their last night in the hotel--their train left first thing the next morning—so they decided to order room service and stay in. They spread themselves and the food out on the bed, ate steak and soggy French fries, shared a bowl of half-melted ice cream.

“So what would you do if you didn’t go to medical school?”

He’d been wondering about her answer since she’d confessed to him in the botanical gardens that it might not be her dream anymore.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot, actually,” she said thoughtfully, sucking the last bit of fudge off the end of a spoon.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“The answer is, I don’t know.”

“What if you stayed here?” he asked casually.

“Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

She stood and started collecting their dishes and he rose to help her, worried she was maybe uncomfortable with the direction of their conversation.

The truth was, he _ was _ asking her what he was implying, would have proposed right then and there if he thought there was a chance she might say yes. But he had only known her a week or two and remembered some of her energy from when they first met – that of a skittish colt—and he didn’t want to scare her off. He was gripped with a sudden fear that he’d come perilously close to doing so, and the thought of scaring her off scared _ him _ so much that his mouth went dry. He didn’t answer her; instead, he methodically piled all the dishes outside the door of their room and turned to her. She had her back to him, picking up a napkin that had dropped to the floor, and a shot of desire overtook him. He moved to her, just needing to be near her. With her. In her.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The way he stopped talking was queer. She felt like there was something he wasn’t telling her. Something was pinging at the back of her mind, remembering the phone call she’d answered at his flat. But then he was behind her and his mouth was on her neck and she stopped caring about anything that wasn’t the exquisite pressure of his tongue on her skin, his hand on her breast, the burgeoning nudge of his cock pressing against her back.

They made slow love to each other. Unlike their urgent coupling on the hillside, this was languid, sensuous. It felt like he was making a promise to her that he had every intention of keeping.

When he dropped her at Colin’s door the next afternoon, she stopped outside of it and watched him walk away, turning back to look at her with a soft smile before rounding the corner and ambling out of sight.

She closed her eyes briefly and thought that perhaps longing could be measured in footsteps, the acuity of yearning increasing by degree, by the number of steps he took away from her. 

XxXxXxXxXxX 

When she walked in the door, Missy was waiting there for her with a bottle of wine and two glasses, already poured.

“I want to hear EVERYTHING,” she said then, and Dana dropped her overnight bag by the door.

“Where’s Colin?” she asked.

“I sent him to the pub with some friends. Tonight is ours.”

Dana gratefully grabbed the glass of wine and the two of them settled into the sofa in Colin’s living room, chatting about the trip, the week leading up to it, everything Dana had been feeling and worrying over. Missy listened, rapt, only reaching over to grab her knee and give it a squeeze when Dana told her about the night she’d lost her virginity. They drank and laughed and chatted and squealed at the appropriate parts.

Melissa grabbed the remnants of the bottle and poured the last ounce or two into Dana’s glass and leaned back, her cheeks flushed, legs tucked under her.

“He sounds amazing, Dane,” she said, sounding wistful.

“I really think he is, Missy,” she said, then squinted at her sister. “Are you not feeling the same about Colin?”

“To be honest, I think it’s maybe run its course,” she said, her face one of contemplation.

“I thought you were nuts about him,” Dana said. 

“I was nuts about the _ idea _ of him,” Missy said. “And he was great. _ Is _ great. But… we’re getting past the new blush of it all, and… I don’t know. I’m starting to miss home.”

“What about how you met? What about the kismet?” Dana asked. “What about the ‘inescapable predestination’ of it all? Your words, by the way.”

“Oh, I have no doubt I was supposed to meet Colin when and how I met him. The Moirai were at work here, Dana, I’m sure of it.”

“But…?”

“But I think we met so that you and Fox could. I think Colin and I are just bit players in _ your _ love story.”

Dana swallowed the last sip from her glass and let the weight of Missy’s beliefs settle on her. She thought maybe, just maybe, she could start to believe them, too.

XxXxXxXxXxX

She looked up at the colorful fabric of the umbrella he’d bought her and twirled it, spinning a rainbow effect of iridescence, the water spinning off into the air around her in a shower of liquid color.

They had planned to meet at a pub, but rain had caught her off guard and she’d run back to grab her umbrella. As such, she was running a little late.

She rounded the corner where the public house was, knowing she still had a dopey smile on her face and found she didn’t even care. Let everyone know. She was deeply, gobsmackingly in love for the first time in her life and she didn’t care who knew it.

She stepped into the pub and folded up her umbrella, depositing it in the stand with five or six others, all drab and black. Just inside the entrance she walked into a wall of sound – the place was packed, the rain having driven everyone indoors. She searched for him and finally saw him sitting at a table in the middle of the room, his arm around the back of an empty chair he must be saving for her.

He hadn’t seen her yet, so she raised her hand to wave to him when a young woman with flowing dark hair and long legs came up behind him and put her hands over his eyes in an intimate, familiar way. She was young and coltish, with purple streaks in her hair and tight acid-washed jeans. Dana stopped short and watched, the smile slowly fading from her lips.

Mulder turned in his chair, and upon seeing who it was, his face lit up in delight and he threw his arms around her. The girl did likewise, and after a long hug, grabbed onto his face with both hands and they stood there staring at each other in practiced affection. After a long, tender moment, he leaned down and kissed her forehead, just as he had done to Dana at the top of a green hill in Scotland.

Dana felt her stomach drop in her gut. Every second thought and doubt came crashing down around her in an onslaught. She felt like she was going to be sick. She turned on her heel and put one hand on the frame of the pub door, holding herself up. She was so stupid. She took one bracing breath, threw open the door of the pub, and ran out into the rain.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder looked up just in time to see what he thought was the titian hair of Dana’s ponytail whip around and disappear through the door frame. He looked down at the young woman in his arms and his mind came to the crashing realization of the optics of the moment.

“Oh Jesus,” he said, adrenaline shooting out like quicksilver through his body.

“Fox? Is everything okay?” The young woman asked, and he looked down at her, her eyes wide and surprised.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and released her, scrambling through the mass of people to get to the pub’s door. Every single person in there seemed to be getting in his way. He finally got to the entrance and looked down to see Dana’s rainbow colored umbrella in the stand. It was definitely her that he’d seen. He shot out of the door and into the street, the rain instantly soaking him. He turned and scanned every direction for her, and thought he saw someone of her stature hurrying around the corner. He gave chase.

When he rounded the corner, suddenly there seemed to be throngs of people, all holding dark black umbrellas. He couldn’t see her anywhere.

Sheets of rain were coming down, getting in his eyes, his mouth. In desperation, he yelled her name.

“DANA!”

Heads turned and the people shuffling past eyed him suspiciously, this wet maniac screaming into the street.

“DANA SCULLLLLAAYYYYYY!”

He careened down the sidewalk, his face catching on the sides of umbrellas as he ran past, bursts of offended surprise coming from the people he jostled, but he ran on, uncaring. He headed for Colin Farnsworth’s flat, where he’d dropped her off that first glorious day.

Three blocks he ran, pell-mell, and he rounded the corner to see her at the door, talking animatedly to whoever was there. She was ushered quickly inside.

He ran down the street and up the steps himself and pounded on the door. Nothing. He kept pounding.

Finally, the door cracked open and Colin Farnsworth stood there uncomfortably.

“Is she here?” Mulder said in between breaths, his chest heaving from running, from emotion. “I need to see her.”

“She doesn’t want to see you,” Colin said, still not opening the door any further than a crack.

“I need to see her!” Mulder repeated, taking a step forward.

“Mate--” Colin said, but before he could go on, the door was thrown open and Melissa Scully stood there like a wraith, fury coming off of her in waves of almost palpable energy.

“You need to leave,” she hissed, and suddenly Mulder saw how alike she and her sister were, the Scully temper a thing to behold. He couldn’t help but grin at the realization.

“You think this is funny?” Melissa shouted, taking a step forward and giving his shoulder a shove. “Leave. NOW!”

Mulder took a step back, the rain running in rivulets down his face, like tears.

“I need to see her,” he said yet again.

“She doesn’t want to see _ you _,” Melissa said, and gave Mulder a long look, like she was conflicted, trying to figure something out. She shook her head as if flicking away the thought, then she stepped back into the flat and slammed the door.

XxXxXxXxXxX

He couldn’t eat, had barely slept. He’d tried calling, but the phone just rang and rang. 

Chuck tried to ask him about it, but he refused to talk. He just needed to see her. To talk to her.

He swung open his front door, about to head back over, once again, to Colin’s flat when he nearly walked into Melissa Scully, who had her hand up in the air, about to knock.

They stared at each other for a moment until finally he said, “Do you want to come in?”

“I can’t,” she said, pointing to a suitcase he hadn’t noticed was at her feet, “I’m flying out this afternoon, and if she knew I was here she’d kill me.”

“Flying out?”

“Back to the States,” she said. “I’m going home.”

“What about her?” he asked, his voice cracking with emotion.

Melissa looked pained.

“She flew out this morning. I found the note she left when I woke up.”

He felt his insides seize.

“Listen, I can explain everything—“ he started, when she held up a hand and interrupted him.

“It’s not me you need to talk to,” she said, “and I’ve tried everything I could think of to get her to come here so you could. But she’s gone. And I thought you should know.”

With that, she grabbed the handle of the suitcase and turned, her retreating footsteps the only sound other than a dull ringing in his ears, echoing off the walls of the empty chamber that used to house his heart.

XxXxXxXxXxX

“Oh, it’s so good to have you girls home!” Margaret Scully said, coming up to where they sat at the kitchen table and hugging them from behind. She had been home roughly 48 hours, Melissa somewhere less than that.

Dana stared into the soggy mess of her cereal bowl and pushed it away, uneaten. She saw her mom and Missy share a look.

“Stop it, both of you,” she said, “I’m fine.”

They shared yet another look.

She realized her posture screamed ‘defensive’ and uncrossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

“Seriously, I’m fine.”

Missy pushed back from the table and collected both hers and Dana’s bowls, taking them to the sink. She turned and leaned against the counter.

“I understand that you don’t want to talk to him, Dana, but you should consider calling him. Even just to ream him out. You need closure.”

She could see her mother listening to them raptly and quietly. She’d told her only the bare bones of what finally sent them packing back to the States.

She pushed her own chair back, just as Charlie walked into the kitchen in athletic shorts and a tight tee shirt, a basketball under one arm. He’d just graduated from high school and would be starting college with an ROTC scholarship in the fall. He pulled up short, halfway to the fridge. 

“Whoa,” he said, “what did I walk into here?”

Dana glared at her sister. Her mother, ever the moderator, stepped in between them.

“Can I make you some breakfast, Charles?” 

“Sure,” he said, and bounced the basketball once before dropping into Missy’s vacated chair.

“Not in the house,” her mother said with practiced serenity as she made her way about the kitchen, clearly happy to be fussing over her children.

It felt good to be amongst the usual familiarity of home, but there was something missing. Dana considered briefly that perhaps it was the absence of her father, but knew that wasn’t quite it. He’d been gone nine months and while they all still missed him, they’d fallen into a new dynamic, the gaping hole he left behind patched up roughly with acceptance and time.

It was Fox Mulder. Somehow he’d become a part of her, his absence like a phantom limb, leaving her incomplete; an itch she couldn’t scratch. 

She was angry. Angry at him. Angry at herself for trusting him, for falling for him, and for wanting him still. She’d dreamed about him every night since she returned and awakened more than once with her hand between her legs, her body betraying her. 

She stood and headed out the kitchen door and continued on out the back, just needing to walk, to move. When she’d done three full circuits around her mom’s block, she went back the way she came, and settled into a deck chair in the sunshine of the back porch, closing her eyes and canting her face into its warming rays. She listened to the sounds of her mother’s neighborhood; the birds chirping in the trees, car doors slamming closed, the ring of a distant doorbell, muffled conversation from inside the house.

A few minutes after she returned, she heard the kitchen door close gently and she turned, expecting to have to tell Melissa yet again to back off. 

It was her mother. She sat down on the edge of a lounge chair and looked at Dana with calm understanding. She held up a hand and spoke.

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” she said, “you don’t even have to tell me anything. But Melissa shared a few things with me and I can tell you’re hurting. There may not be anything I can do or say, but I’m here if you need me.”

Dana considered this. 

“What did Missy say?”

Her mother looked at her for a long moment.

“She said that this boy was different. That you were different when you were with him. That she’d never seen you so happy...”

And with that, Dana crumpled. She sat down next to her mother, burst into tears and told her everything. _ Everything _. When she finished, her mother was silent for a few moments, rubbing her back like she did when she was a child. 

“I know you probably don’t want to hear this,” she finally said, “but I think Missy’s right. I think you need to talk to him. See if he has an explanation—“ Dana tried to interrupt her, but her mother held up a hand, “—and give yourself a break.”

Dana nodded mutely, and her mother stood, pausing with her hand on the kitchen door.

“I also think Missy is right about him. That he’s different. A good different.”

Dana opened her mouth to ask her mother how she was so sure when she opened the kitchen door. Fox Mulder was standing in it.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

She leapt to her feet upon seeing him and he almost fell to his knees at the sight of her. 

Mrs. Scully touched a hand to his shoulder as they passed each other, closing the kitchen door behind her softly, leaving them alone on the porch. 

Dana opened and closed her mouth a few times, clearly not sure what to say. He took a step toward her. 

“You look terrible,” she finally said, his movement spurring her to speak. 

He was certain she was right. He’d been wearing the same clothes for the better part of three days, had what looked like a week’s worth of stubble, and hadn’t bathed in… probably far too long. 

“Why wouldn’t you talk to me?” His voice cracked.

“I saw you,” she said, the hurt in her voice a palpable thing, “with someone else.” 

He probably should have been mad, but his heart only ached for her, living with what she thought she saw. He took one more step toward her, his body feeling better, more alive, the closer to her he got. 

“That girl you saw,” he said, standing directly in front of her now, “was my sister, Samantha.”

She turned white as a sheet. 

“But… I… You said your sister was…”

“Back in the States? She was. She’d flown out to surprise me. I had no idea she’d be there. She’d tried calling, but…” 

“Fox, I…” she looked lost. “God, your poor sister…”

“She insisted I come,” he said, then, “can I hold you?” She nodded, stepping into him, letting him fold her into his embrace. 

“You got on a plane for me,” she said, tearful. “You came back to the States. You came _ here _.”

“Jesus Christ, Dana Scully,” he said breathlessly, “I’d follow you anywhere.” He took a step back and held her by the shoulders, looking her in the eye. “When I told you I loved you before… before we were together… I meant it. It wasn’t a ploy to get into your pants.”

“I know,” she said, looking down, avoiding his eye, “I know. I wouldn’t have slept with you otherwise. And… I should have just talked with you after I saw you with your sister, but I was freaked out and insecure and… to be honest, what we have… this thing between us, it’s so big, it’s so… it scares me Fox.” She finally raised her eyes to his, “like in the biggest, best possible way, but it scares me.”

“It scares me, too. And to be frank, fear is what kept me from saying what I needed to say. What I should have said to you in Scotland. Fear of scaring you away.”

“And what did you need to say to me?”

He took a moment, took a deep breath.

“That you are unequivocally _ it _ for me. That there will never be another person on this earth that makes me feel the way I feel when I’m with you... That I know for a fact that you are the goddamn love of my life.”

She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. To burst into a thousand happy pieces and grab hold of herself from a week ago and smack that girl across the face. Instead, she ran her thumbs lightly over his lips, her touch reverential. A prayer. 

“And you are mine,” she said.

XxXxXxXxXxX 

_ “Did I tell you? Lindsey and Chuck Burks are dating.” Scully said. _

_ “You mean Dr. Cox from Maryland?” _

_ “The very same.” _

_ “Sly dog.” _

_ “Love is in the air, I think,” she said, snaking her arms around his neck. Her fingers toyed with the hairs there and she took light sipping kisses at his lips. _

_ “Nerd love,” Mulder said, nipping back at her. _

_ “The best kind.” _

_ “We’re good at this,” he nodded at the finished story. _

_ She smiled, nodded. _

_ “I can see the cover of our next one in my head: _ _ The Amazing Adventures of Mulder & Scully. _ _ Fighting the good fight.” _

_ “Superheroes?” _

_“If you like.”_

_ “I could be your sidekick,” he said. _

_ “You can’t be my sidekick Mulder, you’re... my familiar, my daemon.” _

_ He liked the sound of that, but longed for something more simple. _

_ “Can’t I just be yours?” _

_ She gave him a squeeze. _

_ “You already are, Mulder. You already are.” _

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to our amazing beta readers for the help and encouragement. This fic in particular would not have been possible without you. You know who you are, please also know you have my eternal thanks!
> 
> This one was was an absolute labor of love, and I can’t thank you enough for reading it. Including the few songs actually mentioned in the fic, this one had a soundtrack, and I’d be remiss not to mention that “Kyrie” by Mr. Mister was always the song that got me in the right frame of mind for writing. 80’s songs for the win!
> 
> Artwork is by admiralty. You can purchase [here](https://www.redbubble.com/people/x-filesseason12/works/40979526-x-files-season-12-novam-domum?asc=u) (all proceeds are being donated to Planned Parenthood.)
> 
> Thanks for reading Episode Four! We'll be back Friday, October 18 at 9:00 EST with Episode Five. Follow us @Season12XF on Twitter for updates and info!
> 
> Feedback is ALWAYS welcomed and appreciated!


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